At a time of unprecedented challenges and opportunities for public health, this book provides the tools for students and professionals who are working to build healthier communities. This book provides to public health and professionals the theory, concepts, and models they need to practice effective primary prevention using the engine of community organizing. The 16 chapters, written by leaders in the field, offers a step-by-step approach to actions steps such as identifying issues, organizing, media advocacy, nutrition, working with multicultural groups, the built environment, environmental justice, locating sources of funding, and evaluating programs. Also included are case studies of community involvement around a host of contemporary issues.

Whether the reader is a student or a professional, by emphasizing the strategy of prevention rather than merely its importance, the text provides a conceptual and practical guide to the application of prevention methodologies covering the wide range of populations and contemporary health and social problems of the twenty-first century.

The text has three main sections. Introductions to each section frame the material that follows, and discussion questions further the learning experience.

1) Defining the Issues (of primary prevention);

2) Key Elements of Effective Prevention Efforts;

3) Prevention in Context.

Primary prevention practice is described as it applies to different health and human service concerns (e.g. tobacco, violence, traffic safety, sustainable agriculture, gender and health) and readers will learn how to apply primary prevention principles to a number of different jobs and health and human service venues. Profiles of prevention leaders are interwoven throughout the text to reveal how people in different disciplines, from physicians to community organizers, incorporate primary prevention practice into their work. Prevention Works describes how to build on the resilience and strength of both individuals and communities, rather than focusing only on individual and community deficits. Issues of evaluation of prevention strategies are discussed, including the need to move beyond the current linear model of evaluation towards a more comprehensive approach. Lastly the book concludes with conceptual frameworks and tools for primary prevention.

Each chapter of the text contains one or more text boxes to contextualize and concretize the written material. These text boxes will cover:

1) Prevention Leaders;

2) Prevention in Practice;

3) Prevention Successes.

The text boxes underscore the application of prevention principles by a variety of different professionals and disciplines in a variety of different health and human service settings. 

The book concludes with appendices containing conceptual frameworks and tools for primary prevention.